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3000hp Twin Turbo Corvette Z06 – The Outlaw ANIMAL

You may be thinking you’ve seen this car on the site before, but if you look ...

You may be thinking you’ve seen this car on the site before, but if you look closely, there are a few subtle differences between this car, owned by Steve Gorman, and the other gorgeous maroon C7 we’ve featured in the past, but they are certainly very similar and share some very cool features. Most notably, both cars are running quite a bit of factory bodywork, a welcome change in a world full of cookie-cutter molded fiberglass and carbon fiber body shells.

Gorman’s car began life as a production C7 Z06 Corvette and still carries the factory quarters and rockers, as well as much of the GM frame beneath. The rest of the body was molded from factory parts, so it’s dimensionally correct except for the hood, which was raised a bit to accommodate the engine and the turbo setup out front. Despite having it customized, the hood is still decidedly Z06-esque and looks perfect on the car.

Beneath that hood, the heart of this beast may surprise you a bit. There’s no boosted big block here, folks. Instead, Gorman decided to take the lighter weight approach and dropped a wicked small block between the fenders. The all-billet bullet is 421 cubic inches and is stuffed full of air by a pair of 88mm turbochargers which push the combination into the 3,000 horsepower realm, more than impressive numbers for a small block. The combination is good for 4.0’s and likely has a little left in it as Steve and crew are able to gather more data and find out where they can put down more power.

While we certainly love all drag cars, it’s a very welcome change to see some of these competitors going away from “the easy way” and building a car that has a stock appearance. We would love to see more racers take this approach, although it is admittedly more work to build a car like this than it is to order a pre-molded body and drop it over a tube chassis.